Five things to do in Montreal area this weekend: March 15-17

After playing to sold-out crowds during Danse Danse’s 2017 season, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal bring back their homage to the music and poetry of Leonard Cohen. The show features 14 dancers performing to 16 songs, including not only standards like Suzanne, So Long Marianne and, of course, Hallelujah, but several from Cohen’s final album, You Want It Darker. BJM boss Louis Robitaille directs what he has described as the most ambitious show in the company’s 45-year-plus history, while the choreography is shared between a triumvirate of major European dance figures — Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Andonis Foniadakis and Ihsan Rustem. It’s on from March 14 to 23 at Théâtre Maisonneuve. — Jim Burke

This event in the main exhibition greenhouse at Montreal’s Botanical Garden is many things: It’s a chance to grab warm weather by the lapels, for one, since the ambient temperature in the vegetation-filled space is 24 degrees to 29 degrees Celsius. With the winter Montrealers have endured, that’s something. It’s also a rare opportunity to observe the riot of colour and activity generated by 1,500 to 2,000 butterflies of at least 50 varieties, to witness their courtship dance and mating rituals and to check out other stages of their life cycle — or simply to delight in their behaviour as they flit and dart around the 700-square-metre space. It’s on until April 28. — Susan Schwartz

Lohan, left, and Miro Croisetière watch as owl butterlies fly around them during preview of the Butterflies Go Free event at Botanical Garden in Montreal on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019.

St. Patrick’s Parade

After a year going in the reverse direction from usual on a different street (de Maisonneuve Blvd.), the parade is returning to Ste-Catherine St. this year. But because of construction, the route will be shorter — 1.2 kilometres, instead of the 1.7 kilometres it was when it ended at Phillips Square, or the 2.1 kilometres when it ended at St-Urbain St. The parade on Sunday, March 17 will start as usual at Ste-Catherine and Fort Sts. at noon, and will go east. The end of the parade will be at Metcalfe St., just east of the official reviewing stand at Peel St. In addition to Ste-Catherine St., parts of Fort, Metcalfe, de la Cathédrale and Peel Sts. will be closed to leave space for setting up and tearing down parade floats. René-Lévesque Blvd. westbound will also be closed to traffic the morning of March 17 between de la Montagne and Fort Sts. for setup.